


Dawn of an Age

by LittleLinor



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Implied spoilers, Multi, Nagamas, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5873107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/pseuds/LittleLinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Ike leaves everything behind--everything except Soren and Ranulf, that is. <br/>Everything goes better than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dawn of an Age

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nagamas, for an anonymous giftee who requested Ike/Ranulf/Soren with Ranulf/Soren gradual bonding. It was honestly very good timing, because I'd been pondering on this ship recently, so! I hope this is to your liking.

It's the cold that finally makes him cave.  
They're in a snowy shelter a day or two North of Nevassa, and for once, Ranulf can enjoy the complete lack of sentient life within hearing (and probably walking, considering the snow) range to stroll about in cat form, although _that_ mostly consists of curling up in front of the fire and purring obnoxiously at them. Soren, personally, prefers to make himself useful, organising their little camp to make the most of the cold stone walls, building the fire, keeping his body moving in general.  
His experiences with Daein in general have never been good. The still deeply conditioned hatred of laguz doesn't make him any more comfortable with his origins as he already is, but the cold is what makes it worse. The mountains of Daein feel heartless, and the emptiness reminds him too much of some parts of his life, no matter how cosy and lively Ike and Ranulf might make the place.  
It's the kind of cold that seeps into one's bones, makes the muscles around them feel brittle, and Soren, whether by genetics or from starvation in his developing years, has never built too much muscle or flesh around his too visible bones, despite following the same basic training regimen as everyone in the mercenaries.  
Even Mist has developed some roundness to her shape, he muses as he finally gives up on finding idle yet obviously urgent things to do and sits in front of the fire, hugging his knees. And her swordsmanship, despite her height, isn't much weaker than her brother's.  
Or it was. They haven't seen her in a few months now.  
He's still trying to push off a slight sense of guilt when something touching his back makes him jump.  
“Relax,” Ranulf all but purrs at him, and Soren is too on edge to give his usual cutting reply before he wraps himself around his back, curling right back into an almost-ball shape on the ground, Soren's body at the center.  
“… Ranulf.”  
A low, lazy rumbling is his only answer, and like this the vibration spreads into his very body, seeping into him from all sides.  
“… _Ranulf_.”  
“What?”  
“What are you doing?”  
“Your fingertips were turning purple.”  
“How is that any of your concern?”  
“Do you think Ike wants you to let yourself hurt yourself through negligence, just to avoid contact? Do you think _I_ want you to?”  
It's enough to slap him into silence, in the quiet, shame-filled way that still accompanies any reminder of his own failings, and his occasional lack of rationality in particular.  
And knowing Ike frowns on _that_ set of feelings tends to only make them worse.  
“… I'll try not to make myself an inconvenience,” he murmurs.  
“That's not what this is about,” Ranulf sighs. “Just relax and enjoy the heat, don't you? It's here for the taking, anyway. Nothing wrong with a bit of cuddling.”  
There's everything wrong with 'a bit of cuddling.' Soren doesn't like contact, has never been able to find it comforting in itself unless he actively wills himself to.   
Early childhood conditioning he never went through, he's thought for a while.  
But he hates this cold more than he hates contact, from people he can trust at least, and while he may not actually _trust_ Ranulf in the general sense, he'll readily admit that Ranulf is _trustworthy_ , and maybe that will have to do for now.  
So he lets himself focus on the sensation of fur pressing against his body through his clothes, of Ranulf's breathing shifting the large, warm body around him, until his body acclimates to the feeling and he can release the muscles at the back of his shoulders.  
“See,” Ranulf murmurs when he does, “much better.”  
For once, Soren doesn't argue.

That night, after Ike's come back and they've eaten and gone to bed, he doesn't complain when Ranulf presses himself against his back either. Ike, facing him, raises an eyebrow, but Soren just shrugs and curls closer to him, letting Ranulf shift in turn and all but squeeze him between the two of them.  
He's learned, from a very young age, to not move in his sleep.

They stay in the Northern Daein area for far longer than Soren expected or liked. The snow still gets to him, and the dark looks they often get when they walk into villages are all too familiar.  
But it's precisely because the weather is so bad and the prejudice so deep that Ike moves through them, and Soren knows it. Where there's cold, there's work to do, especially in a country that's still recovering from Ashnard's reign and the effects of Begnion's occupation, not to mention two wars in a row. It hasn't been that many years. The newfound prosperity of Nevassa itself hasn't quite reached the more remote villages.  
So they come in and Ike and Ranulf offer to work in exchange for a roof for a few days, and the people here may hate Laguz, but superstition makes them too nervous to break the rules of mountain hospitality and send someone back into the snow, and no one quite dares argue with someone Ike's size, anyway.  
Nor with Soren's own face.  
So they come in, and they don't stay long, but in the short time they did, they've usually done some good to the village infrastructure thanks to Ike's strength and Ranulf's agility, and by the time they leave, some of the villagers can almost see Ranulf as a person, even if they're still wary of him. Not all of them, and definitely not fully, but it's progress. He makes himself useful enough, and even Soren has to admit that his friendly attitude makes him hard to hate.  
It's probably for the best that none of them have seen how deadly he can be in battle. But then, they probably don't suspect it of Soren either.

“You look healthier,” Ike tells him one day out of the blue, when Soren's leaning against his chest to read.  
The idea makes him snort.  
“No, really! I don't know what it is, you certainly haven't gotten any more meat on your bones...”  
“Thanks for the compliment,” he counters, voice heavy with sarcasm that neither of them really believes he means. “It may be my body's defense mechanism. Leaving meat around you is a liability.”  
From the floor next to them, a snorting giggle rises, too slowly muffled. Soren slides a finger between the pages of his book to mark his position and hits the pile of fur with it.  
“Quiet. You're supposed to be sleeping.”  
“How am I supposed to,” Ranulf whines, “when you make such fleshed-out jokes?”  
A second book-hit reduces him to silence, although Soren can hear the very smirk on his obnoxious cat face from here.  
“Actually,” Ike muses, “maybe that's the difference.”  
“Enlighten me.”  
“When we were in the mercenaries—especially when we were at far, you were always stretching yourself thin. I know you enjoy books, but all this strategising late at night was wearing you out. And no daily training can make up for that if you're tired.”  
“It's what kept us alive. What kept _you_ alive.”  
“I know. And I'm grateful for it, Soren. But I'm glad it's over.” A kiss to the back of his ear, so quick and subtle that no one save for Soren's sense of touch could have noticed it.  
And Ranulf's ears, probably. But he's learning to make himself forget about those.  
“You're the one who's only put on even more muscle since the war,” Soren tries to argue back, “somehow.”  
“You _would_ know about that, huh?”  
Soren hits him with the book again.

When the winter ends, so does, ironically, their time in Daein. The last village they'd been in had actually been mostly warm (in its welcome, not its climate), unlike the one before that, and they had, this time, spent enough time in it to really rest.   
And, incidentally, help with some minor defrost-flooding.  
The mud reminds him of the battlefield, in a weird nostalgic kind of way.  
They pass by Nevassa on their way out, but don't stop, just like they've been avoiding major rest and transit points on the main roads. Too many people could recognise them in the capital.  
“A pity,” Ranulf sighs. “Micaiah is a lovely lady.”  
“I didn't think she was your type,” Ike jokes, and _that_ is all the proof Soren needs that he's been spending much too much time with Ranulf already.  
“I don't _have_ a type. I'm open! Even to delicate beauties,” he adds with a wink in Soren's direction.  
Soren doesn't humour him with an answer, but he doesn't expect it to do much.  
Nor does he care, really.  
And that's a strange thought in itself.

Begnion is a much larger area, one they could get themselves lost for months or even years if they wanted to, but it turns out none of them are too comfortable with the place.   
Ranulf might not show any discomfort at the frequent looks that spell “he's their slave” better than any book in Sienna's oh so precious library, but Soren knows it bothers him nonetheless. A curt reminder that slavery is outlawed and that sawing dissension is a dangerous venture is something he can only get away with once or twice, but the satisfaction when seeing their faces is worth it, although he could do without the extra tactile attention it gets him from Ranulf after the second time.  
But even that is preferable to him sulking. The look is unnatural on him.  
Ike, meanwhile, gets recognised a few times (the downsides of having served a short term as general: those men who survived both wars and went home are scattered through the country and many still look up to him, although there too they find resentment every now and then), and takes to disguising himself as best as he can. Which, mostly, consists of taking even less care of his appearance than usual, and growing a beard.  
It makes him look old, and Soren wastes no time in telling him that the look is terrible on him.  
“It's good against the cold, though,” Ike points out.  
“Just wait until we get to sand,” Ranulf teases, leaning (who gave him the right?) on Soren's shoulder. “You'll regret it then.”  
“Wait, since when are we going to the desert?”  
“We're not,” Soren states curtly, shaking Ranulf off his shoulder. “There's nothing worth our time there.”  
Maybe that village exists, and maybe it doesn't. Soren's in no hurry to check.

They could have gone through Goldoa, technically. A special favour, discreetly given by Kurthnaga himself before Ike left. A place to rest, from the involvement in gods' schemes and the channelling of their powers. He'd given Soren a smile, too, as if he'd already known Soren would follow Ike anywhere he went, dragons or not.  
But Ike had thanked him for the invitation and that was as far as he ever went. They steered clear of the border, even when cutting through could have saved them time.  
“I'm not on a schedule,” he'd said. “The trip's the entire point.”  
“Good,” Ranulf pipes up. “Dragons make my fur stand. Kurthnaga is nice, but...”  
“They're all too full of themselves,” Soren finishes for him.  
Ranulf laughs.  
“Like someone I know.”  
“Need I remind you that I don't need to breathe flames to roast that fur of yours?”  
“You're just proving my point,” Ranulf teases back.  
“Let me prove mine, then. Ike, do you like cat meat?”  
“I'm pretty sure the peace treaty forbids you from roasting him, Soren.”  
“A pity.”  
“He definitely likes _some_ kinds of cat meat,” Ranulf whispers just loud enough to be heard. “Maybe you should try too.”  
Thankfully, they carry enough water to soothe the singed tip of his tail.

It's summer when they finally make it to Gallia.  
Here, it's Ranulf, more than Ike, who risks being recognised, but it's, for once, a trip all three of them want. It's as important as all their other stops put together. And thus, despite the possibility of running into someone, they make their way towards a village both Ike and Soren know all too well.  
Finding it is, ironically, harder than they'd expected. Ike's memories are still muddled, and he had been a child at the time. Recognising building would be easier than placing it on a map. And his father, who would have known, can't exactly help.  
In the end, it's Soren, with Ranulf's help, who finds the way. They trek north a little, until they find the path he'd taken to Crimea, and he leads them down the other way, doing his best to hide from them the cramp in his throat.  
The trip feels unreal. It's like his shoulders are lifting themselves from his torso, like his body doesn't belong to him anymore, with the way every movement of his body comes into focus with harsh intensity. He's aware of every step, even as reality seems to fly and meld around him.  
Before he knows it (and even though it's taken them several days), the landscape melts into cultivated lands, faster than he remembers. Houses, where there were none before. And finally, those steps take him into the town itself, into the crowd of people who, this time, don't throw any stones in his direction.  
In fact, with his brand mostly hidden by his hair (a style he has Ranulf to thank for, and as he stares around him, disconnected, part of him almost bristles with something not quite irritation, because of _course_ Ranulf would make himself useful enough that he'd need to thank him later. Maybe he even did it on _purpose_ ), nobody seems to pay him any mind, aside from the one passer-by in a hurry who bumps into him and snaps him back to reality.  
Ike puts a hand on his shoulder.  
“It's grown bigger now.”  
“Yes. I suppose those treaties are really bringing about growth and co-existence.” He tries to smile. “I think you and Elincia are to thank for that.”  
Ike chuckles.  
“Her, mostly. All I did was escort her around and be rude to Sanaki.”  
“Well, she did need it. They both needed it.”  
“Maybe. But in retrospect, it's a miracle Sanaki didn't have me thrown from the walls or something.”  
“You say that, but you talked the same way to a Goddess,” Ranulf points out, catching up with them.  
“Yeah, well. I think _she_ owed me enough to put up with it.”  
They stay silent. Ranulf, for once, doesn't try to break the silence, letting Ike take in the newly grown town, and the distance between it and his past.  
In the end, it's Soren who makes his move.  
“Let's buy something to eat. For old times' sake,” he adds, giving Ike a side smirk, and getting a softer smile in return.  
Ranulf brightens up immediately.  
“I love you when you have good ideas like that.”  
“Nonsense. I always have good ideas. It's my job.”  
“I remember your rationing on the job being harsher than this.”  
“Times change.”  
They buy fresh, hot buns, and meat skewered on sticks, and Soren lets the two others convince him to eat it on the move with them.  
He doesn't go back to the old Oak near what used to be the border of town. He doesn't need to anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know the French word for "tail" is a phallic inuendo? Now you do.  
> Enjoy your easter egg dick joke.


End file.
